D20 Air Force JROTC Soars at National Championship

Our co-ed team was comprised 8 boys and 4 girls from all six high schools across the district: Pine Creek, The Village, Discovery Canyon, Air Academy, Rampart, and Liberty. Ours was one of three teams from Colorado. The others were from Denver North and Fountain Ft. Carson.

The Road to Nationals

Membership on D20's Raider Team is exclusive to JROTC students who score a 75% or higher on the national fitness tests. The group is led by Colonel Robert Huber who joined Air Force ROTC in college, served in the Air Force for 25 years as a pilot, and who has led the program at Air Academy for the past 12 years. In his time as JROTC instructor, Colonel Huber indicated he'd only had one other team he felt was good enough to take to Nationals and that was in 2020. The team was unable to go in 2020 due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, making this the first team to participate in Nationals!

When we asked Colonel Huber what he thought had shifted the team's performance, he not only credited students' fitness levels, but an additional voluntary team practice each week. Practice includes prep-work for the areas of competition: a 3km log run, push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups (men)/flexed arm hang (women), and the weighted ball throw. The team often does a circuit or two and then concludes the experience with some extra fun: a bit of volleyball.

"It’s a really fun time!" Emma said of the weekly practices. "All those kids are just so passionate about fitness anyway that it just makes it even better. It's just a really motivational of group of kids and they're all just so supportive."

About the Competition

The US Army JROTC National Fitness Championships take place in Orlando, Florida over the course of a single day and are comprised of five events: an obstacle course, a 3km log run, timed pull-ups (men)/flexed arm hang (women), the standing broad jump, and the seated ball throw row.

"The hardest part of the competition was trying to not burn out over the course of the day considering it was 83-85 degrees outside and humid," said Collin Baggett ('22), who has been in ROTC since his freshmen year and is headed to Colorado School of Mines on an Air Force ROTC scholarship in the fall. Collin participated in all five events and even earned a PR (personal record or personal best, PB) on the seated ball throw. Collin indicated that the team had qualified for the competition in previous years, but that it had been canceled due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. "Getting to actually go and compete with my teammates was pretty exciting!" he said.

Teammate Andrew Strub ('23) agreed about the challenges of heat and humidity, but also reflected on the 3K log run on the beach, "We knew that could be our weakest event. The team can only be as fast as our slowest person. We can't leave that person behind, so we had to pace off of that so that the slowest runner could actually keep up." In order to participate in the log run, you need nine athletes. Four run while holding the log and the other five run alongside and serve as substitutes, as necessary. In order to attempt to compensate for the lack of heat and humidity while training in Colorado, the team took the approach of using a 4x4 piece of lumber that was 10ft. long, extending the overall distance of their training run, and practicing the run on hills, when possible.

Ultimately the team placed 4th in the 3K run. "I loved it!" Andrew said. "I would do it again as many times as I can."

Team member Mark McLean ('23) agreed. "We stuck together, cheered each other on, and gave it our all!" Mark said of the overall experience.

Competition Results

Team Results

D20's co-ed team achieved the following:

3rd place overall for the obstacle course
3rd place for pull-ups (men)/flexed arm hangs (women)
4th place for the 3K log run (2.2 miles)

Individual Results

Congratulations to Aimee Dominguez from The Village who was the overall 2nd place Female at the competition!
Congratulations to Connor Barton from Air Academy High School who earned a 3rd place individual medal in the seated ball throw!